


autonomous sensory meridian response

by starsshinedarkly77



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: ASMR, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Fluff, Hux makes ASMR videos, I basically mashed two aus together and here we are, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Seriously Kylo is an anxious wreck, Social Anxiety, YouTube, brief mentions of graphic death and violence, i swear this is way fluffier than the tags make it sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 13:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6521875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsshinedarkly77/pseuds/starsshinedarkly77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lying in bed, riddled with anxiety and racing thoughts he can barely control, Kylo turns to ASMR videos to help him fall asleep - and discovers something surprising.</p><p>"It’s the last person on earth Kylo ever would have imagined making ASMR videos, the last person on earth he would associate with being soothing.</p><p>It’s Hux."</p>
            </blockquote>





	autonomous sensory meridian response

**Author's Note:**

> May I present to you, yet another fluffy fic that got way out of hand and grew longer than I ever anticipated! I'll warn you now, this is extremely self-indulgent, and I've projected onto Kylo like crazy, the poor kid. This fic describes anxiety in extreme detail, including a couple of paranoid thoughts that get a little graphic, so if reading this might make you upset or anxious, please keep yourself safe! There's lots of fluff to balance out the angst, though, so don't worry! Please enjoy it :)

There’s a lump of fear lodged in the base of Kylo’s chest and it _will not go away_.

  
He’s been trying to fall asleep for the past hour and half, at least, which really means that he’s spent the past hour and half staring blankly up at his bedroom ceiling, trying to will his heart to stop beating so goddamn fast. His room is pitch black, but he’s been lying here so long his eyes have adjusted to the dark, and he can make out the shape of the ceiling fan swirling around above him, and the faint movement as the currents of air from the fan disturb the curtains over the window. It isn’t the dark he’s afraid of - he's not a _child_  - but the distorted, shadowy shapes on the walls and the faint sounds from the rustling curtains do nothing to soothe the aching, restless tick of his heart in his chest, the sick, weighty feeling of the anxiety in his stomach. The fear is hard to deal with because its cause is nameless, undefinable, and as he stares up at the ceiling his thoughts are a whirlwind of worries and doubts. Suspended in near darkness, near silence, he lets himself pick over his every word, his every action and he feels embarrassed for himself; he lets himself think about the exhaustive list of things he has to _do_  and lets his dread of doing them turn his stomach to knots; he lets himself imagine that, right now, outside his window, the world is ending and he will not be aware of it until it is too late, until there is fire flying through the room, burning him up to ash and cinder.

  
His throat constricts. He sits up and fumbles for his phone on the nightstand. It’s almost two am and he doesn’t _want_  to be on his phone right now - the light emanating from the screen stings his eyes, and he feels exhausted right down into his bones - but anything is better than lying still as a corpse in the dark and letting himself be afraid.

  
Kylo scrolls through a couple of posts on Instragram, flips over to Tumblr for a few minutes, and then he just starts googling every word he can think of, anything to distract his brain and racing pulse, just for a little while. Nothing catches his attention, not for long enough, and he finds himself scooting over, leaning over the edge of the bed to hunt around in the dark for his earbuds, which he knows he remembers seeing on the floor by his bed earlier. After a few seconds, he’s victorious, and he yanks them up and pops them into his ears before plugging them into his phone, opening YouTube in a new browser tab and lying down on his back. He taps the search bar, and his fingers hesitate over the touchscreen keyboard when it pops up, unsure of just what he’s looking for, until it comes to him and he’s typing in _asmr_ _roleplay,_  hitting enter and waiting for the results to load.

  
ASMR videos have become his go-to when he can’t sleep (which is far more often than he’d like to admit). He didn’t understand the concept of them at first; the thought that someone talking into a camera and making sounds with various objects could trigger some kind of physical response in a person had, frankly, kind of weirded him out. But the whole Internet seemed to swear up and down that they were extremely relaxing, so one night when he’d been worn down and frustrated beyond belief at his inability to just go the fuck to sleep, he’d decided that there was no harm in trying and clicked on the first search result that had come up. And, miraculously, it worked.

  
The sound of the blonde woman whispering quietly while she pretended to give him a hair cut had sent a warm tingling sensation up and down his spine and crawling across his scalp; he’d been able to feel it in his hands and arms, all the way through his legs, and, yes, it had been a little bizarre but it had felt so _good_. Entirely outside of the physical aspect, the eye contact and ‘attention’ from the actress in the video gave him the illusion that he wasn’t alone, that someone was actually talking to him, caring for him, and it was embarrassing to think how lonely and desperate for affection he must be if he found _that_  so soothing, but the video had put him to sleep in under fifteen minutes and he wasn't willing to ignore that fact for the sake of his _pride,_  of all things. So he’d steadily picked his way through video after video on the nights sleep alluded him, impressed at the wide range of creativity and ingenuity the creators of the videos displayed, and if you were to ask him now, well, Kylo would swear up and down they were damn near their own art form and they’d afforded him more peaceful nights of rest than he could even begin to count.

  
The problem, though, is that he’s watched so many of them that when the results of his search pop up he has to scroll through pages and pages of videos he’s already seen. He’s not adverse to re-watching some of them - as he’s done with several of his very favorites - but he’s so keyed up tonight he’s worried he won’t be distracted enough unless he finds some new material. So he scrolls down and down and down until, there, there’s one he hasn’t seen before, from a channel name he doesn’t recognize. He squints a little at the thumbnail but he can’t make out much more than a shock of bright red hair on whoever’s starring in the video. The title looks pretty standard - ‘have tea with me! asmr roleplay for tingles, relaxation, and sleep’ - but he might as well give it a shot. He taps on it with his thumb, nestles further underneath the sheets and tries to get in a comfortable position to watch. The video starts out black, fades in slowly - and Kylo sits bolt upright in bed.

  
“No fucking way,” he says, out loud, only barely able to hear himself through his headphones and the sound of the video starting. Because the person in the video, the person currently smiling warmly at the camera, whispering a greeting, offering him a cup of tea is - no. There’s no way. It can’t be, it can’t be, there’s no goddamn _way_  - and yet.

  
And yet, it is. Kylo runs his eyes over the red-head’s face, strains a little to hear his voice, just to be certain, to be _absolutely, positively_  certain, and it is. It’s the last person on earth Kylo ever would have imagined making ASMR videos, the last person on earth he would associate with being soothing.

  
It’s Hux.

  
Hux, who is his asshole boss at the shitty little coffee shop Kylo works at to pay his bills because being an artist full-time just isn’t cutting it, not yet. Hux, who’s pulled him aside during his shift dozens upon dozens of times to criticize everything about him from his work ethic to the way he wears his hair. Hux, who Kylo really and honestly doesn’t even dislike that much, but who is just so fun to fuck with that Kylo can’t help himself, that Kylo can’t resist pushing back and trading barbs with even if it turns his stomach over with anxiety half the time with fear he’s going to run his mouth right into getting himself _fired_ , for fuck’s sake. Hux, who is uptight and snobbish and condescending, whose voice is tight and clipped and always indicative of whether or not he’s about to _sneer_  at you (and he usually is). It’s that Hux.

  
It’s hard to imagine that someone like Hux, of all people, would bother taking the time to make anything meant to calm people down, to comfort them and make them feel good, but there he is. There he is in miniature on the screen of Kylo’s phone, smiling in a way Kylo has never seen him smile, speaking softly, gently, in a way Kylo has never heard him speak. And he’s _good,_  too. The whisper of his voice is already starting to make Kylo’s scalp prickle, is already sending satisfying sparks along the skin of his legs, and then he is taking out a packet of loose leaf tea, shaking some into a strainer, and the sound of it makes Kylo feel like he’s going to melt into a goddamn pile of useless goo right here and now. Yeah, he’s good.

  
He pauses the video, clicks over to Hux’s YouTube channel. It seems that he’s fairly popular; he’s got a good number of videos, each with a sizable amount of views and comments, which makes it odd that Kylo’s never seen a single one of them. He scrolls through them, barely skimming the titles, his eyes drawn to that distinctive head of hair in each of the thumbnails. It’s definitely him.

  
Kylo only hesitates a moment before he clicks back to the tea video. It feels a bit strange, a bit voyeuristic, to be watching someone he knows in a real life in such a vastly personal context, but…well, but the _sound_  of that tea strainer is still echoing in his bones, and he can already feel the calm wave of Hux’s voice taking the edge off of his anxiety, silencing the intrusive thoughts that have been rocketing around his head for the last hour, and he decides it’s not going to hurt anything to watch the video. Or a couple of Hux’s other videos. It’ll be a bit weird when he sees his boss again, but it’s not like Hux has to _know_  he’s seen them. It’s nothing to worry about.

  
Within a matter of minutes, the sound of Hux brewing a cup of tea and engaging in quiet conversation has lulled Kylo to sleep.

* * *

 

So, it might be something to worry about, a little.

  
At least, it’s something for Kylo to worry about, because he’s so prone to worrying in the first place that there’s no way he _isn't_  going to worry about it.

  
He’s only just walked into work the next day when he catches sight of Hux holding court behind the counter, posture rigid, his sharp, pale green eyes watching the other employees like a hawk, and the sight of him sends a little shiver through Kylo’s body. He can’t fight back the memory of video-Hux whispering in his ear, pouring tea, asking about his day, and he can feel his face getting hot already even though he hardly has a reason to be embarrassed. There’s no way Hux will know he’s seen the videos, as long as he doesn’t say anything stupid.

  
Kylo manages to avoid Hux’s gaze as he slips into the back to stash his stuff and tie on his apron before he clocks in, and as soon as he gets behind the counter he’s swept up in the now-familiar routine of taking orders, counting change, swiping credit cards, marking the sides of plastic cups with the right combination of letters so the baristas know what drink to make. This used to make him a lot more anxious than it does now, before he got the hang of it, before he learned the exact line to deliver to each customer, the exact tone with which to deliver it, scripted carefully so that he never has to worry about what he’s going to say to each individual person. It still flusters him a little when people are unnecessarily rude, makes him nervous and then makes him pissed, directly after, but he’s getting better at ignoring it, which maybe means working in the service industry is breaking his soul, but in Kylo’s opinion numbness is better than fear and always has been. He prefers making drinks, because it means not having to talk to customers, but there’s also a vaster array of things for him to worry about fucking up (what if he accidentally puts milk instead of soy in a drink and it turns out the person is lactose intolerant? what if he spills a scalding hot drink on himself or another employee and Hux yells at him?), so the tradeoff is about even, at this point.

  
He gets into a rhythm and he would stay there, except he can feel Hux’s eyes on him, and it’s starting to make him nervous. It makes him nervous enough on a regular day, because he knows Hux is just _waiting_  for him to slip up so he’ll have something else to scold Kylo for, but it’s worse than ever today, because it makes him feel like Hux knows that Kylo knows, even though there’s no way he could know and Kylo’s brain really needs to just shut up and let him do his job.

  
He shuts the cash register with a little more force than he needs to, and as a result he drops the change he’s supposed to be handing back to a customer, nickels and dimes scattering across the counter and all over the ground. _Shit_. He mutters out a ‘sorry’, kneeling down to scoop up the change, but his fingers won’t move fast enough and the coins are slippery and he feels hot and embarrassed and it’s taking him too long, way too long, and it’s almost, _almost_  a relief when he feels someone slide in next to him. Hux delivers a smooth apology to the customer, hands over the correct amount of change while Kylo is still picking pennies up off the tile, and it’s so witheringly terrible that he just wants to stay down here, kneeling under the counter, for the rest of his shift, or maybe until he dies, whichever comes first.

  
But he can’t do that, and he lifts his eyes, taking in the view of Hux’s knees in his pair of firmly pressed slacks before he stands up, slowly, cupping the spilled change in one palm. Hux doesn’t look all that mad, but he doesn’t look pleased either. He is very, very close to Kylo, so close that he could count all of Hux’s freckles, were he so inclined, and the image of him smiling, gently, in the videos rises unbidden to the front of Kylo’s mind. He swallows thickly.

  
“Do try to be more careful, Ren,” is all Hux says before he turns away, heading off to hover over someone else for awhile.

  
Kylo replaces the coins in the register, slowly, deliberately. He pretends he did not feel the shiver that ran down his spine at the sound of Hux’s voice.

* * *

 

Because he is, apparently, a glutton for punishment, Kylo does not stop watching the videos.

  
The problem is that they are _too_   _good._  Hux knows what he’s doing and it shows. His videos are exceptionally well-made, well-scripted, and well-edited, and they’re creative, to boot. Kylo about loses his mind over one where Hux plays a mechanic who repairs the ‘android’ viewer - it’s over an hour long and has what feels like his entire body buzzing with feeling the whole time, skin dancing with sensation born of faint mechanical whirs and the gentle hiss of Hux’s voice.

  
If he expected to be put off by the fact that it’s _Hux_  in the videos, he was mistaken. It’s oddly satisfying, having this, this illusion that he’s receiving positive attention from someone who dislikes him in reality, and he drinks up all of Hux’s gentleness and kind words like someone dying of thirst, imagining that they are real, that Hux could really look at him, at Kylo, and still speak the way he does in the videos, with a warm smile on his face.

  
When he’s at work, Kylo can’t look at Hux - cold, rigid, detached Hux - without remembering the way he is when he’s pretending to make a cup of tea, when he’s pantomiming fixing an android or giving someone a scalp massage, and it makes it near impossible for Kylo to act the way he normally does around him. Hux is just as hard on Kylo as he usually is, both on the clock and off it, but Kylo can’t bring himself to give voice to any of the arguments, the insults, he would usually respond with. It feels like a betrayal, somehow, like he’s throwing Hux’s kindness back in his face, even though Hux hasn't even _given_  him any kindness, not really.

  
Hux’s criticisms start to sting a little more, too, after Kylo grows used to what it’s like to hear words of comfort and reassurance pouring from his lips. It’s like a bait and switch, feels like he’s been tricked, every time, because when Hux opens his mouth Kylo is ready for the soft whisper, for the tingle in the palms of his hands, but instead he receives only bland, harsh tones telling him to tuck in his shirt, or that he missed a spot mopping, or that he got a customer’s order wrong.

  
As a result, work becomes as anxiety-inducing as it was in the first few weeks after he started, when he still messed up every other order and got so flustered talking to customers Hux would send him to the back to do inventory most days. Kylo starts feeling queasy hours before he goes in, his skin crawling with apprehension at the thought of having to see Hux, having to speak to him and pretend like nothing has changed.

  
But he can hold it together. He’s been fighting off anxiety his whole life, and he knows how to soldier through it, knows how to grit his teeth and pretend every waking moment isn’t a struggle to hold everything together, a struggle to keep himself from flying apart. He is used to being afraid, and at least if he is afraid of Hux finding out, if he is afraid of being fired, then he has less time to be afraid about everything _else_  his brain is screaming at him to be afraid of, like getting hit by busses or being mugged or accidentally poisoning himself somehow.

  
He can handle it. He always has.

  
So he keeps watching the videos. At night, stomach clenched with worry, hands trembling, he watches Hux, closes his eyes and lets that sweet, velvet voice wash over him and tell him everything is okay, everything is alright.

  
He can’t stop watching. He can’t, he won’t, and he doesn’t understand why.

  
At least, not at first.

* * *

 

Predictably, just as Kylo thinks he has everything under control, it all falls apart around him.

  
He checks YouTube right when he gets home in the afternoon, and there is a new video from Hux, an hour long, this one titled ‘go on a date with me! asmr roleplay with personal attention for relaxation, sleep’.

  
He pauses. His thumb hovers over the video. It isn't night, it isn't time to go to sleep. It’s still broad daylight outside. By some miracle, he’s not even feeling particularly anxious right now. He has no reason to watch this video now, should save it for when he needs it, and yet…and yet, he is insatiably curious, his mind racing as he wonders what it would _possibly_  be like to go on a date with _Hux_ , of all people. Hux, who is prissy and distant and unbearable on his best days.

  
Kylo clicks on the video, and he goes on a date with Hux.

  
And. Oh. _Oh_. Now he knows why he can’t stop watching the videos.

  
Kylo goes on a date with Hux, and it all falls apart around him.

  
He watches the whole thing, straight through, and he doesn’t know that he is crying until it is over, when he is yanking his earbuds out so hard it hurts, it _hurts_ , everything fucking hurts because now he knows what it is like to go on a date with prissy, distant, unbearable, sweet, intelligent, impossible _Hux_  and it is _terrible_ , it is the _worst_ , and it is his own goddamn fault. He knows what it is like to go on a date with Hux and all of it was fake, every last bit of it, and he will never have it, not really, this is the closet he will ever get. He will never get to see Hux like this, not really, because the Hux that exists in his reality, in his world,  _hates Kylo._

  
His breath is caught in his chest and it rattles on its way in and out of his throat, and his heart is pounding and everything is too much, too hard, too overwhelming. His chest is racked with sobs and they hurt in his whole body and he needs to calm down, he _has_  to, before he starts hyperventilating. He sniffs, chokes, trying to hold the tears in, trying to even out his breathing, but he feels like he is going to break in half and he wraps his arms around himself and holds on, holds himself together until he can take a deep breath, and then another, without it hurting so  _damn much._

  
It was a mistake, a mistake, a mistake. He let himself feel too much, want too much, let himself believe in a fantasy, let himself _love_  - no, no, no, he won’t say that, he won’t, he _won't_  - let himself _like_  someone who didn’t even exist, not really, not to him. Even if the Hux in the videos is who Hux really is, is what lies underneath all that severity and sternness, Kylo will never know, because he’s already ruined it for himself, all because he couldn’t resist yanking Hux’s pigtails when they first met, all because he’s fucked up so completely and consistently that Hux will never see him as anything other than incompetent and obnoxious. An annoyance. Less than nothing.

  
That night, he does not sleep. He has nothing to comfort himself with.

* * *

 

The next morning, Kylo throws up, and then he goes into work.

  
He feels detached, too numb to even feel how exhausted he is. Even seeing _him_  is not enough to shock him out of it, and Kylo floats through work like a zombie, like a perfect little robot, and he does not drop one cup of coffee, does not mess up one order, does not miscount one bit of change. He does not fuck up anything, and he thinks maybe the universe is handing him a reprieve to balance him out, so that he doesn’t fall completely to pieces under the weight of his own failure.

  
This is why it surprises him, startles him, when Hux is suddenly at his elbow, when he says, as flat and severe as always, “Ren, may I speak with you for a moment?”

  
This is what he usually says before he’s about to chew Kylo out for something, and as Kylo follows him into the backroom he is running through every single thing he’s done since he got here today. He hasn’t fucked up today. He hasn’t, has he? Did he forget to clock in? Has he been rude to customers, not noticing through the haziness of his own mind? Or maybe it wasn’t today, maybe something yesterday, or last week that Hux has only now discovered -

  
But then Hux is turning to him and his expression is softening - _softening???_  - and he is looking at Ren with something akin to _concern_  in his eyes, and it might be the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to Kylo, outside of that time he got completely fucked up on wine coolers at Poe’s birthday party and tried to help Rey steal a frozen turkey from the supermarket.

  
“Are you feeling alright, Ren?” Hux is asking him then, quietly, gently, and, yes, hell must have frozen over because there is no way that this is happening to him right now. Yesterday Kylo might have been over the moon at the idea of Hux speaking to him this way, but now it just makes him ache dully. Everything is too raw, too fresh, and this _hurts,_  enough to break him out of the numb little shell he’s been tucked away in all day.

  
“Yes,” he says. “Yeah, yes, I’m fine, why are you…like, I didn’t mess anything up, right? I didn’t mess up?” He has to know that he didn’t mess up.

  
“No, no, you just seem very,” Hux pauses delicately, scanning Kylo’s face with those sharp, sharp green eyes. “Subdued. Are you ill?”

  
His gut instinct, crafted by years of gallows humor meant to keep himself from drowning in the dark of his own thoughts, is to joke _mentally, maybe,_  but he can’t imagine that Hux would find that as funny as he does.

  
“No, I’m fine,” Kylo says. “Not sick. So I’m not going to like…infect the customers or get germs in the cold brew, if that’s what you’re so worried about.” Because that must be what it is, it has to be. Hux is worried about the health and safety of the _customers,_ not of Kylo.

  
Hux’s brow twitches, just a little. “That’s good to know,” he says slowly. “But are you…” He trails off, huffs in irritation, and it dawns on Kylo, very belatedly, that he is seeing Hux _flustered_ for the first time. “What I’m trying to say is, if you need to take a personal day today, you’d be welcome to do so, because honestly you look like you’re about to collapse and I’d rather you not do it behind the counter. And, frankly,” he continues on, before Kylo can respond, “You’ve been acting off for weeks now and I would like to know if everything is alright.”

  
He wants to know if everything is alright. He, Hux, wants to know if everything is alright with  _Kylo._

  
“Why, Hux,” he says, dry and sarcastic, because for some reason, even now, he can’t seem to stop himself from acting like a complete asshole. “I didn’t know you cared so much. I’m touched, really.”

  
The tips of Hux’s ears color and all the concern, all the gentleness, is gone in an instant, like it was never there, as Hux retreats back under his aloof little mask, and, really, truly, Kylo deserves to get punched in the face by someone at some point, he really does.

  
“I’m concerned about the well-being of all my employees,” Hux says, stiff, curt, professional. “Because if you’ve had some personal emergency, you need to take some time off so that it doesn’t affect sales and general productivity. That’s all.”

  
That’s all. That’s all, he says, and usually Kylo would take him at his word, inclined to believe that Hux cares more about his schedules and his sales and his store numbers than he cares about any actual human beings, but, well. Well, he knows that can’t be quite true, not entirely. He’s seen a different side of Hux now and maybe, just maybe, it’s not completely unbelievable that that side of Hux might care, just a little, about his employees - about  _Kylo._

  
He puffs his cheeks out, blows out a long, steadying stream of air. “Look,” he starts, and his heart flips over a little in his chest. “I found your videos.”

  
There’s a flicker of a reaction in Hux’s face; his already fair skin pales by the barest degree, before he recovers. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, suddenly looking to the left of Kylo’s face instead of directly at him.

  
“Your ASMR videos,” Kylo presses on. “I mean, I know it’s you, unless you have an identical twin I don’t know about.”

  
Hux is frozen for a second, his mouth flattening into a severe little line. “Okay, yes, they are mine,” he says finally, “But I don’t know why you would…why does it matter that I…” He is flushing now, red in the cheeks and neck and ears and damn him for being so endearing when he’s embarrassed, that is so completely unfair. “I know they’re rather embarrassing but if you think you can blackmail me by - “

  
“Woah, what the fuck?” Kylo blurts out. “What would I need to blackmail you for?”

  
Hux’s nostrils flare, more out of nervousness, it seems, than anger. “I don’t know. I just…I don’t understand why you’re bringing them up.”

  
Admittedly, Kylo doesn’t know either - to explain his behavior, he thinks, but that almost raises more questions than answers, because then he has to explain _why_  the videos affected him so strongly, and he wants to wilt with humiliation just thinking about admitting his revelation from yesterday to Hux, but, well, he’s dug the grave at this point, and now he’s gotta lie in it.

  
“I just. I wanted you to know I saw them, I guess,” Kylo says lamely. “Because they’re like, really really good. No, really,” he insists, when Hux looks at him sharply. “That one with the android repair? Fuck, dude, that should be in art museum, it’s amazing, the tingles I got from that were _insane._ ”

  
Hus is still flushing a little, but he seems mollified - almost pleased. “Well. Thank you,” he says. “I’m glad you enjoyed them. I,” he hesitates slightly. “I didn’t think you’d be the sort of person who watched things like that.” Hux pauses for a moment, narrows his eyes. “Unless you’re one of those people who watches them to get off.”

  
_"No,"_  Kylo blurts, absolutely mortified and not a little bit sick feeling just thinking about it. “Gross, no. I mean, it’s none of your business, actually, but if you have to know, I get really anxious before I go to bed sometimes - I mean fuck, I’m literally anxious like all the time, but the point is sometimes I have a lot of trouble falling asleep, and ASMR is, like, one of the only things that I know can calm me down enough to get some rest. I found your videos completely by accident and I was curious, so I watched a couple, and they’re like. Really, really relaxing, you seriously know what you’re doing, so I’ve been using them to get to sleep a lot. And then it’s weird being at work with you after that because, well.” He stops, grinds his toe into the floor. “Well, I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but you act totally different here than you do in the videos, and it’s been hard for me to, like, synthesize those two things, I guess, and I figured you wouldn’t be happy if you knew I’d seen those, because it seems really, like, private, or personal, or whatever.” He tries to look Hux in the eyes but can only manage to lift his gaze to the other man’s shoulder. “But I won’t tell anyone, and if you want me to stop watching them because it’s too weird, then I will.”

  
His heart is pounding in his chest, and his fingers are picking restlessly at his cuticles. He’s talked for too long, rambled, said too much, and he’s still half sure Hux is about to fire him, even though that barely makes sense.

  
Hux lets out a long, quiet sigh, leans back against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. He looks smaller than Kylo is used to. “No, you don’t have to stop watching them,” Hux says finally. “I’m glad they were able to help you…and I think, honestly, that I owe you an apology.”

  
Kylo stares, hard, at him. _What the hell for?_  he wonders, when he’s the one who’s been being a complete asshole since he started working here.

  
He must look confused because Hux continues on without further prompting. “If I had known you had anxiety, if you’d told me about it, I wouldn’t have been so hard on you,” he explains, and he sounds honestly and truly apologetic. “It’s been rather unfair of me, I think, and I think I’ve assumed a lot of things about you that probably aren’t true, which is also terribly unfair of me, especially since I barely know you.”

  
Kylo can imagine the kinds of thing Hux assumed about him. He knows he comes off as rude because of how reluctant he is to talk to people, how much he clams up when he speaks, and he definitely knows how incompetent he looks when he gets flustered and messes things up, which only makes him more flustered and he messes _more_  things up, and then to put the icing on the cake, when Hux took the time to correct him, he’d responded with hostility and biting sarcasm. He can only imagine how rude and lazy and arrogant he must have seemed, and it’s fucking embarrassing, honestly.

  
“Yeah, well, I haven’t been all that nice to you, either, so I’d say we’re about even,” Kylo says. “We sorta just. Got off on the wrong foot, I guess. I am really, really good at getting off on the wrong foot with people, it’s an issue, I know. But I also know you can’t be as much of a hardass as you pretend to be here, if you’re spending your free time making videos specifically designed to help people and make them feel better.”

  
For a second he thinks he’s gone too far, _again_ , by calling Hux a hardass, but the edge of Hux’s mouth is quirking up in a brief smirk, and it’s so close to being a smile that it makes Kylo’s heart skip a beat. And he could let it go here, now, leave it comfortable between them - he feels it now, the potential for something like friendship to blossom up, and that can be enough for him, it _should_  be enough for him. But, well, he’s feeling just a little bit brave, just a little bit daring, and for once, he ignores all the little hesitant voices going off inside his head and he just  _does._

  
“I saw yesterday’s video, too,” he says, and watches for Hux’s reaction to that. He feels like he is standing at the edge of a chasm, one foot over the edge of it, and he is desperate to know if, when he takes the next step, Hux will catch him or let him fall and hit the bottom.

  
“Oh?” Hux says, the picture of neutrality, but there is something warm in his eyes that Kylo is not sure he’s ever seen before, even in the videos.

  
“The one about going on a date with you?” he prompts, and there is no going back now. “I was just curious, if…if that’s what it’s really like to go on a date with you.” And there, yes, that’s risky, and he is trying to keep the tremor out of his voice, trying to conceal his fear, but at least it’s not him saying, 'oh, yeah, by the way, I bawled like a baby when I watched that video because I thought you hated me.'

  
Hux is looking at him now, hard and careful, and Kylo thought he was the one on the chasm’s edge but now, he thinks, it might be Hux who’s there instead.

  
“Would you…” Hux says, and his foot is over the side, and Kylo thinks, _just step. Just step, I will not let you hit the bottom._  “Did you want to find out, if it is?”

  
“Y-yeah,” he says, and wow, since when is his voice that high-pitched? “I mean, if you wanted to…I mean, you don’t have to just ‘cause I…I’m not really…”

  
He feels like he owes Hux a warning, like the prospect of spending time with him should come wrapped in caution tape, with a list of possible side effects, all of them bad. Dating him is like dating a time bomb, and he always manages to explode just at the wrong time, in the wrong way, and he knows, he knows, this will happen, eventually, because it always, always does.

  
But, but, Hux is stepping closer to him, now, and he is saying  _"Shh,"_  gently, softly, in a familiar whisper, and it sends the best kind of tremors darting through the surface of Kylo’s skin, dotting him with goosebumps, and he has to close his eyes, just for a moment, and when he opens them again, Hux is smiling, and this time, that smile is for him, just for him, and it is real, and so much more beautiful and precious in the flesh than it _ever_  could be in a video, even in 1080p HD quality.

  
“After work,” Hux says. “After work, would you maybe want to come over? To my apartment?”

  
Kylo feels himself nod like he’s having some sort of out of body experience, and when they come out of the back room, together, to return to work, he swears that his feet don’t touch the ground when he walks, not once.

* * *

 

Hux’s rigorous double- and triple-checks of absolutely everything in the store have never been more annoying than now. Kylo has already clocked out for the day, and now he’s waiting for Hux, and the longer he waits, the more anxiety builds up in that no-man’s land between his chest and stomach, the more thoughts like _oh God, I've made a mistake_  gather at the edges of his mind, and he just needs for them to _go, now_  before he loses his nerve and tries to make a run for it.

  
He’s remembering, too, just now, that he hadn't actually _slept_  at all last night, and towards the end of his shift he’d started feeling completely dead on his feet and had to make himself a triple-shot macchiato just to ensure that he really wasn’t going to pass out behind the register. So now he feels both exhausted and completely wired from the caffeine, as well as just a little bit nauseous, so that’s fun, and if he falls asleep or pukes in Hux’s apartment he’s going to have to leave the country and change his name, probably.

  
Hux finally, _finally_  seems to be finished with his inspection of the counter, and he’s walking towards the back room, untying his apron, taking off his name tag. He looks at Kylo just before he disappears through the door, as if he’s making sure Kylo hasn’t already left without him, and it’s so odd, thinking that Hux might be nearly as nervous about this as Kylo is.

  
And then he’s back, coming towards Kylo with a brown messenger bag slung across his body, his fingers taut against the strap, and he almost looks shy, and Kylo can’t decide if that puts him at ease or makes him feel even _more_  nervous.

  
“Ready to go?” Hux asks, and despite how he looks, he sure _sounds_  steady and sure of himself, as he always does.

  
Kylo clears his throat. “Yeah, lead the way.”

  
They step outside. It’s cool today, and a little bit windy, and Kylo lets his eyelids flutter shut, just briefly, as he draws in a deep breath of fresh fall air, before he starts to follow Hux down the sidewalk, presumably towards his apartment building. It’s the opposite direction of the way Kylo walks home; Hux’s apartment must be on the other end of town, but not far, if they’re walking. It only takes a few strides for him to catch up to Hux and fall into step at his side. A silence falls over them and Kylo cannot tell if it is companionable. Instinct tells him to fill it but his own worry will not let him find his voice, so he soaks up the quiet instead, observing, taking note of Hux’s quick, calculated steps, how they compare to his own awkward, loping gait. The breeze tussles Hux’s hair slightly, knocking a carefully parted ginger lock out of place, and Kylo finds himself wondering what it looks like when it isn’t full of gel, when it’s uncombed and mussed from sleep.

  
Hux must notice he is being observed, because he straightens up almost imperceptibly, chooses to break the silence. “I do hope you aren’t allergic to cats,” he says. “Because I’ve got one, and it’s impossible to keep her hair off of anything, I’ve tried.”

  
Kylo knows he has a cat. He’s seen it, in one of the videos, when Hux had hoisted her up and petted her until she purred into the microphone. He can’t remember her name.

  
“Nope, not allergic,” Kylo says. He’s not the biggest fan of cats, but Hux doesn’t really need to know that, and besides, she’d seemed harmless enough in the video.

  
“Good, good,” Hux says distractedly. Clearly Hux is far less experienced with awkward silences than Kylo, whose entire existence up until this point has mostly consisted of nothing _but_  awkward silences.

  
It’s a relief, then, when they turn a corner and Hux relaxes, puts on a little burst of speed. Kylo follows his gaze, and _damn_ , that’s his apartment building? He supposes he knew that Hux must make a good amount of money, given that he’s a manager _and_  a successful YouTuber, to boot, but this part of town is _nice_ , this building is _nice_ , and Kylo feels a hot little squelch of shame somewhere in his chest when he thinks about his own apartment, where the hallways always smell like weed and there’s paint splattered on every surface because there is no room for separation between his work space and his living space.

  
Hux leads him inside the building like Kylo _belongs_  there, as if he is not terribly out of place in the pristine, shiny chrome-plated lobby of this place in his black jeans with the knees torn out and a pair of Converse sneakers so old that the soles are starting to separate from the rest of the shoes. Kylo ducks his head down so he doesn’t have to look anyone in the face, so he doesn’t have to know the caliber of person who lives here and wonder what they must think of him, doesn’t have to think about how Hux must be ashamed - _must_  be - to be seen with him, or if he’s not, how he probably should be.

  
Then they’re in the elevator - because Hux’s building has an _elevator_ , and he lives on the fifth floor - and the upward movement turns his stomach, just a little, and he’s never been claustrophobic but he’s always been paranoid, so his brain takes the time to let him imagine the elevator cables snapping, the box they’re in smashing completely flat like a pancake when it hits the bottom of the shaft, killing them both, liquifying their bones. But when he looks at Hux, Hux is staring steadily back at him, and he offers him a smile that is barely more than a quirk of the corners of his lips, but it lights his eyes like green lamps, like that goddamn metaphor in _The Great Gatsby_  where Gatsby stares off a dock into the vast darkness, fixated on one point of green light, but Gatsby was looking towards the past and Kylo feels oddly like he’s tumbling too fast towards a future he’s not sure he’s ready for, but he wants so badly to try to be.

  
The elevator dings and the doors slide open and they move as one out into the hallway, down it, until Hux stops in front of one door, his door, reaches for his keys. Then the door is swinging open and Kylo is seeing Hux’s apartment for the first time, and he realizes as he steps in that he _recognizes_  it, that he knows that furniture, that color on the walls, from the backdrops of Hux’s videos. It’s impeccably tidy and minimally decorated; Hux certainly doesn’t keep piles upon piles of paper scraps and open tubes of paint and dirty laundry all over his living space. But in one corner there is a table covered with objects, and an expensive-looking microphone, which must be Hux’s recording set-up.

  
Kylo realizes that he’s remained hovering in the doorway while Hux has continued into the apartment, putting his bag down on the kitchen counter, setting his keys in a bowl seemingly positioned just for that purpose. There’s a thick, ginger lump resting on the back of the couch, and Hux reaches out to stroke it; when he does so, it stretches, stands, and leaps off onto the ground, twining itself about Hux’s ankles and giving a plaintive meow before darting off down the hallway.

  
Kylo isn’t sure what they’re supposed to do now that they're here, and it seems Hux doesn’t really, either, because they both stand, awkwardly, without speaking, for nearly a full thirty seconds before Hux clears his throat.

  
“Please, have a seat,” he says, politely, gesturing at the sofa, and Kylo follows the order like he’s that chick from _Ella Enchanted_  and it’s going to cause him physical pain if he doesn’t. He sits down in the center of it and folds his hands neatly in his lap, almost scared to touch anything. Hux comes around the edge of the sofa and sits in a chair across from Kylo.

  
“Listen,” Kylo says, his mouth dry, trying to give voice to a thought that’s been worrying him since they left work. “Listen, we’re not, like, here to hook up, right? Because I don’t really do shit like that.”

  
Hux sits bolt upright (he’d been leaning back a little in the chair, apparently relaxed by being in his own home), chokes a little on air, and Kylo is treated to the sight of his ears reddening, for the second time today.

  
" _No_ , God,” Hux says, firmly. “I don’t typically lure people back to my apartment under false pretenses, Ren.”

  
“Not typically, huh?” he says, feeling his own lips quirk with amusement, and Hux mirrors the expression a moment later.

  
“No, only sometimes.” He scoots to the edge of the chair, closer to Kylo. “No, that isn’t why I asked you to come here. And I can’t promise that this will be like going on a date with me, but I’d like to try something, if you wanted to. You can consider it an apology, of sorts, if you’d like.”

  
“Okay?” Kylo says, brimming with curiosity, and Hux stands up, seats himself next to Ren on the couch. They are so close their thighs are brushing, and his heart thumps out a staccato beat against his rib cage.

  
“Is this okay?” Hux whispers, right next to his ear, and oh, _oh_ , every nerve in his body lights up like he’s been waiting for this, and he can’t stop the sigh that passes his lips, long and slow, as the tension leaves his shoulders and he slumps forward.

  
“Yes,” he mutters, and again, “Yes,” because he doesn’t know how to ask Hux to keep going.

  
It seems he doesn’t need to, though, because Hux is leaning towards him, just a little closer, and the feel of his cool breath against Kylo’s cheek sends feeling crawling along the fronts of his shins and down his neck.

  
“May I touch your hair?” Hux asks, in that sweet, sweet undertone, and Kylo nods dumbly, and then Hux’s fingers are tangling themselves up in the thick, black locks of his hair, the tips of his nails brushing Kylo’s scalp, and he thinks that by now he must have _actually_ melted into a warm puddle of goo and ruined Hux’s pristine white sofa.

  
“Is that good?” Hux murmurs, and no, _now_  Kylo must be a puddle of goo, because there’s no way he’s allowed to _feel_  this good and still retain a solid, corporeal form.

  
“Yeah,” Kylo says, with another sigh, and then he opens his eyes, because he hadn’t realized until this moment that they’d somehow slipped closed without his notice. “Fuck,” he says, then. “You’re gonna make me fall asleep.”

  
“It’s okay if you do,” Hux whispers, soft and warm. “I just want you to relax, alright?”

  
There’s something ironic about the ever-uptight Hux wanting him to be relaxed, but _fuck_ , Kylo doesn’t care, because he is so _tired_ , and Hux’s long, narrow fingers are moving gently through his hair, and his body is warm next to Kylo’s, and his whispers are ringing in Kylo’s ears and sending beautiful, wonderful tingles up his arms, and Kylo feels more relaxed, more safe and peaceful than he has in weeks. So he leans back against the sofa, shuts his eyes, and lets himself just _be_ , just _feel_ , just _listen_ , as Hux starts to whisper him a story, the words of which he does not hear or comprehend, because he can stitch his own tale together from every rise and fall in pitch, every turning, understated syllable, and Hux’s story becomes a spoken song that carries him away into unknowing.

* * *

 

When he becomes aware again, the room is dark, and there’s a sour taste in his mouth and a crick in his neck.

  
He is curled into a loose comma on Hux’s couch, and his head is pressed against Hux’s thigh, and Hux’s fingers are still tangled loosely in his hair. Kylo listens to the soft sound of him inhaling, exhaling, and decides he must be asleep. Hux can’t be comfortable, sitting up on the sofa like that, with Kylo’s chin digging into his leg, but Kylo doesn’t want to wake him, can’t bring himself to move for fear of disturbing him, so he closes his eyes again. Within seconds, he is snoring.

  
He sleeps peacefully on until morning, and he does not dream. He has no need to do so.  
  



End file.
